Working Out Salvation

 One of my favorite scriptures comes from Philippians, and I think it has a lot of implications about salvation and interpersonal relationships between Christians.

Philippians 2:12-13 12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

As a note, I have formatted the bold text above to call out the abbreviation that I normally quote. The full two verses are included for context, but even just that short phrase is full of ideas to unpack.

From the top, the exact phrasing is “work out.” Salvation isn’t something to take trivially. You need to deliberate on it. This is a matter of life and death, with eternal consequences. We cannot afford to be cavalier about salvation. If you aren’t comfortable really digging in and working out where you stand with God, you’re going to have a hard time accepting salvation with more than just lip service. Praying the sinner’s prayer is enough to be saved, but that shouldn’t be the stopping point or the only action by any means. You really want to consider exactly what you believe and why.

Up next, “your own salvation” carries substantial weight. I’ve heard plenty of times that people aren’t too concerned with salvation because “my grandfather was a preacher,” “my grandmother never missed a Sunday,” or any other justification. That’s all well and good for them, but how does that affect you? Salvation is between you and God. We don’t get to ride anyone’s coattails into the kingdom. That’s up to us. I’d even say that I’m more concerned if you came from a long line of church-goers and you AREN’T concerned with salvation. Somehow you managed to miss the urgency and severity while being exposed to church.

On the flip side, that also means you can’t get saved for someone else. You can’t pray someone into being saved. That requires an individual internal decision to accept salvation. You can talk to them about it, you can encourage them, you can pray FOR them, but they must choose to accept that gift. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

As well-intended as it is, I also think that speaks very negatively of the coerced conversions at the end of vacation bible school or youth events. We want these kids to get saved, absolutely. But personally, I think a lot of these leaders and coordinators pressure kids to say the sinner’s prayer and just throw them to the wolves. They don’t have important conversations leading into salvation, they don’t follow up with helping a new believer understand the decision they’ve made, and so we leave a very vulnerable group of people with a lot of questions and doubt. I spent several years in my youth in this weird situation where I wasn’t entirely sure if I was saved and didn’t really know how to figure that out. I don’t want that ambiguity and uncertainty for the next generation.

Finishing up, “with fear and trembling” sounds very intense and I believe that it is. Again, if you’re taking salvation as some sort of trivial thing to get around to sometime in the next few years, you don’t get it. This is very big and frankly very scary. At the same time, taking up one’s cross and following Christ is not an easy undertaking. Just jumping headlong into a lifelong relationship with the creator of the universe is maybe not a great idea without some thought and consideration. Even if you do make the jump quickly, think about the implications of your actions after you do it. Don’t just throw yourself at it and go with the flow.

I really do love that verse because it’s so packed with ideas and application. The biggest takeaway, though, is probably that salvation is a very big deal and you need to think long and hard about it. Whether you haven’t yet made that decision, you made it recently, or you got saved decades ago, it’s never a bad time to consider what salvation means.